Bacteria free thaknsgiving;

A popular way to celebrate holidays or any party occasion is to invite friends and family to a buffet. However, this type of food service where foods are left out for long periods leave the door open for uninvited guests—bacteria that cause foodborne illness. Festive times for giving and sharing should not include sharing foodborne illness. Here are some tips from the USDA's Meat and Poultry Hotline to help you have a SAFE holiday party.Safe Food HandlingAlways wash your hands before and after handling food. Keep your kitchen, dishes and utensils clean also. Always serve food on clean plates—not those previously holding raw meat and poultry. Otherwise, bacteria which may have been present in raw meat juices can cross-contaminate the food to be served.Cook ThoroughlyIf you are cooking foods ahead of time for your party, be sure to cook foods thoroughly to safe minimum internal temperatures.
Beef, veal and lamb steaks, roasts and chops may be cooked to 145 degrees F.
All cuts of pork to 160 degrees F.
Ground beef, veal and lamb to 160 degrees F.
All poultry should reach a safe minimum internal temperature of 165 degrees F.Use Shallow ContainersDivide cooked foods into shallow containers to store in the refrigerator or freezer until serving. This encourages rapid, even cooling. Reheat hot foods to 165 degrees F. Arrange and serve food on several small platters rather than on one large platter. Keep the rest of the food hot in the oven (set at 200 to 250 degrees F) or cold in the refrigerator until serving time. This way foods will be held at a safe temperature for a longer period of time. REPLACE empty platters rather than adding fresh food to a dish that already had food in it. Many people's hands may have been taking food from the dish, which has also been sitting out at room temperature.The Two-Hour RuleFoods should not sit at room temperature for more than two hours. Keep track of how long foods have been sitting on the buffet table and discard anything there two hours or more.Keep Hot Foods HOT and Cold Foods COLDHot foods should be held at 140 degrees F or warmer. On the buffet table you can keep hot foods hot with chafing dishes, slow cookers and warming trays. Cold foods should be held at 40 degrees F or colder. Keep foods cold by nesting dishes in bowls of ice. Otherwise, use small serving trays and replace them. Foodborne BacteriaBacteria are everywhere but a few types especially like to crash parties. Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium perfringens and Listeria monocytogenes frequent people's hands and steam tables. And unlike microorganisms that cause food to spoil, harmful or pathogenic bacteria cannot be smelled or tasted. Prevention is safe food handling.If illness occurs, however, contact a health professional and describe the symptoms.Excerpted from the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the USDA. Last Modified: March 25, 2008.
Lastly, I want to wish all of you a very safe and happy thanksgiving, to your families also. Please don't forget to give thanks for all that you have and please say a special prayer for those that are serving our country and are unable to be at the table with us, just know that they are there in their hearts, no matter where they are! Happy Thanksgiving!

Safety;

For those of you avid runners and bikers that run and ride on the road, you are most likely already aware of this, so this is aimed more at those that are part time road bikers and runners unaware of the rules of the road. When biking or running on the road at any time of the day, you must take the mindful action to go with the flow of traffic and if running or biking at night or early morning, when it is dark, reflective clothing and reflective tape or bolt on reflective aparatus is recommended. Lately i see this more and more and i know it is not those of you who do this on a daily basis but perhaps you are in a club or have friends that are new to this practice and can bring this safety precaution to their attention. Nothing derails a long term training goal faster than an injury, espically if that injury involves being hit by a car, if you even live through the injury to be able to heal from it. So please, pass this information on to anyone you know to be an avid road runner or biker, espically those that you know are new to the practice. It is as simple as crossing the street to avoid costly injuries, financially as well as physically! As usual, regardless of your chosen sport, Train hard and smart!

Amino of the week;methionine;

Methionine ia an essential amino acid that assists in the bearkdown of fats, thus helping to prevent a build up of fat in the liver and arteries that might obstruct blood flow to the brain, heart, and kidneys. This amino acid helps the digestive system; helps to detoxify harmful agents such as lead and other heavy metals; helps diminish muscle weakness, prevent brittle hair, and protect against radiation; and is beneficial for people with osteoporosis and chemical allergies.It is also useful in the treatment of rheumatic fever and toxemia of pregnancy.
Methionine is a powerful antioxidant. It is beneficial for women who take oral contraceptives because it promotes the excretion of estrogen.
As an essential amino acid, methionine is not synthesized in the body and so must be obtained from food sources or from dietary supplements.
Good food sources of methionine include beans, eggs, fish, garlic, lentils, meat, onions, soybeans, seeds, and yogurt.
Methionine is useful for working out due to the fact that it breaks down fats and is a powerful antioxidant, it is an inexpensive way to protect the body by supplementing with five hundred milligrams after working out.

6 hidden dangers of high blood pressure;

By Stacey Colino
:: //-->MediZine's Healthy Living Winter 2008
High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, isn’t only a silent killer, it’s also frequently misunderstood and underestimated. “I often refer to it as the Rodney Dangerfield of risk factors—it gets no respect,” says Daniel Jones, M.D., past president of the American Heart Association and dean of the University of Mississippi School of Medicine in Jackson. Understanding the RisksUnfortunately, patients who have high blood pressure are at an increased risk for the following six serious health conditions, especially if they fail to take full control of the disease.1. Heart disease. According to the American Heart Association, high blood pressure directly increases the risk of coronary heart disease, which often leads to heart attack, especially when it’s present with additional risk factors. 2. Stroke. The National Institutes of Health reports that high blood pressure is one of the leading causes of stroke because it puts unnecessary stress on the blood vessel walls, causing them to thicken and deteriorate. 3. Chronic kidney disease. Since high blood pressure makes the heart work harder, it can damage blood vessels throughout the body over time, the National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse reports. If the blood vessels in the kidneys are damaged, they may stop removing wastes and extra fluid from the body, which can lead to kidney failure.4. Peripheral vascular disease. Any condition that causes the walls of the arteries to weaken, including high blood pressure, can put a patient at increased risk for peripheral vascular disease, experts say.5. Vision changes. According to experts, hypertension can result in blurred or impaired vision; in severe cases, it may even lead to blindness.6. Impaired brain function. Research also suggests that hypertension can take a toll on brain function over time. A study at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York City found that people with hypertension have a 40 percent higher risk of developing mild cognitive impairment as they age. And research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore found that hypertension is associated with a more rapid rate of mental decline in people with Alzheimer’s disease.Increasing AwarenessSo why is high blood pressure, which affects some 73 million adults in this country, so often dismissed? For one thing, many people simply don’t know what it is. (Here’s a quick definition: Blood pressure is a measure of the force of the blood pushing against the artery walls as the heart pumps out blood. In someone with hypertension, that force is stronger than it should be.)Another factor, Dr. Jones says, is “the typically long time from the onset of high blood pressure to the consequences of the problem—that is, a heart attack or stroke.” Plus, it’s so common that people tend to ignore it.In addition, patients and doctors may be at odds with each other. Researchers at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond concluded that those with high blood pressure often don’t share their health-care providers’ views on such issues as their symptoms and the need for lifelong medication, which can compromise the health professionals' ability to control the condition.Patient compliance isn’t the only obstacle to adequate treatment: Doctors aren’t always as aggressive as they should be when it comes to hypertension. “Often, there’s physician inertia—doctors don’t always add medications or increase dosage appropriately,” says Domenic Sica, M.D., chair of clinical pharmacology and hypertension at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. “Physicians increasingly recognize that two medications are usually required to treat hypertension, but they fail to appreciate that three drugs are often necessary to fully control it.”Taking Control The bottom line: Get your blood pressure checked regularly, and if you have high blood pressure, follow your doctor’s treatment plan closely. Plus, be open to the possibility that you’ll need more than one medication. In general, lower doses of multiple medications is more effective than a higher dose of just one, Dr. Sica says: “You get the most bang for the buck with the fewest side effects.”
Step It Up!It’s no secret that excess weight raises blood pressure. “Being overweight is the most common risk factor for hypertension in most industrialized countries,” says the University of Mississippi in Oxford’s Daniel Jones, M.D. The double whammy: If you’re overweight, high blood pressure tends to be tougher to control. But losing extra weight and getting physical activity can help. For example, regularly wearing a pedometer and setting a daily goal for a certain number of steps—10,000 is widely recommended—is linked to significant declines in blood pressure and body mass index (BMI), according to a recent review of studies by researchers at Stanford University. Also helpful: reducing salt, limiting alcohol and eating more produce and low-fat dairy.
Omega-3sPeople whose diets contain a lot of omega-3 fatty acids—from fish, nuts, seeds and vegetable oils—tend to have lower blood pressure. So says a recent report from Chicago's Northwestern University.